The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-11-09
PRECAUTIONS AGAINST DISEASE.
The Water Supply for Children Will Receive
Attention-Prof Collett Speaks Again.

A special meeting of the school board has
been called for this evening to consider the tax
Ing OF precautionary measures concerning the
water supply at the various school buildings.
No sickness has been discovered resulting from
the water used at any of the buildings, and no
alarm is felt. but members of the board, feeling
called upon to use the utmost care for the
health of the thousands of children of whom
they are, to certain extent, in charge, have
decided to avoid the possibility of disease re-
sulting from the water used. Some of the
schools have driven wells which reach the sec
ond water-level; some use hydrant water only;
some have surface wells. 1t was proposed to
supply those of the latter class with boiled
water. but as this relief would be only tempo
rary. the sentiment of the board now appears to
be to have driven-wells put down to the second
water-level at these schools.
Prof Collett says that the physicians who
speak of his statements in the interview about
the effects of the drought upon drinking water
make mistake in calling them theories s'They
are facts" said Prof. Collett yesterday, land
every man acquainted with the science of chem
istry knows them to be such All chemists
know that the pyrites of iron, arsenic and cop
per are insoluble when permanently covered
with water. Long continued droughts expose
them to the oxydiZation of the atmosphere
which occurs through alterations of air
that they become soluble in water
The effect of this in regions of
the coal measure, sub-carboniferous and De-
yon1an shales are not matter of theory but of
recorded fact. During and after droughts dis
eases of bowels, cholera morbus, dysentery and
As iatic cholera. when epidemic. will prevail and
declmate the population, as at Stony Creek,
near Danville, Ill. at Porcine, in Gibson county,
and Mt. Vernon, Ind, during the last Asiatic
cholera epidemic. Far more remarkable are the
occurrences in the last few years in east
efn Kentucky and western Virginia,
where coal measure rocks prevail The
glacial drift with this material brought
most obdurate of the rocks of the Silurian, De-
vonlan and sub-carboniferous shales, containing
many pyrite specimens of these different ages.
They may be seen in every rock collectors cabi-
net These, long continued, actively poison
Gus as soluble sulphite
AS to typhoid fever, it is is the almost uni
versal belief of medical that it lis directly or
indirectly derived from the decay
or decomposition of organic mat
ter. Beyond this it is not simply
belief, but in many cases. carefully studied in
Europe and America it has been proven that it
is so caused The disease did not exist where
such causes did not prevail. In an adjoining
were seen, the disease was present. When the
cause was removed the pollution was removed,
and the disease disappeared This is not
d matter of theory, but of observed
fact of which individuals, companies and
courts have taken cognizance. Advanced
practitioners of to-day have seen through the
microscope and by careful study of reason and
cause IN microscopic animal and vegetable life
which poisons the blood They seeking and
recognizing such causes and are endeayoring to
obyiate the cause and thus cure"